1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an audio signal processing device that processes audio signals according to a designated configuration of signal processing, and to an audio signal processing system that includes such an audio signal processing device and a controller controlling operation of the audio signal processing device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been a well-known audio signal processing device in which an audio signal processing module is composed using a processor operable following a program, and an external computer such as a PC (personal computer) or the like executes application software to function as an editing device so that audio signals can be processed based on a configuration of signal processing edited using the editing device. Such an audio signal processing device is called a mixer engine in the present application. The mixer engine stores therein the configuration of signal processing edited by the PC and can independently perform processing on audio signals based on the stored configuration of signal processing.
For the edit of the configuration of signal processing on the editing device, the components being constituent elements for the signal processing in editing and a wiring status between their input and output nodes are graphically displayed on an edit screen of a display to allow users to perform editing work in an environment where the configuration of signal processing can be easily grasped visually. Then, a user can arrange desired processing components and set wires between the arranged components, thereby editing the configuration of signal processing. Further, the editing device functions as a controller controlling the mixer engine in such a manner that it is provided with a function of performing operations such as transferring data indicating the edited configuration of signal processing to the mixer engine to thereby cause the mixer engine to process audio signals according to the configuration of signal processing.
Further, when a capacity of one mixer engine is not enough for the audio signal processing, the plural mixer engines are cascaded to cooperatively execute the audio signal processing, and the aforesaid editing device edits a configuration of such signal processing. In this case, in order to cause each of the mixer engines to execute the audio signal processing according to the edited configuration of signal processing, the editing device transfers data indicating the edited configuration of signal processing to each of the mixer engines.
The mixer engine and application software described above are described, for example, in Owner's Manual of a digital mixing engine “DME32 (trade name)” available from YAMAHA Co., especially pp. 23 to 66 (pp. 21 to 63 in English version).